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To my competition.
There is talk here about "bad neighborhoods", but little talk of other sorts of neighborhoods. The web is made up of millions of these neighborhoods where people naturally link to each other. This is even more common among non-commerce sites than the commerce sites that everyone here is so concerned about. And it is not done as any sort of trade for PR, it is done because they are someone that you have a *real* link to so you also give them a hyperlink.
Just consider a big Italian family where everyone is online with their own websites and some of them have their own blogs.
One your "about me" page you will link to your immediate family, your favorite cousins, etc. Your parents will link to their children, their siblings, and their parents.
There might be some one way links in and out, but almost all the links will be honest, important, and reciprocal. It has nothing to do with PR, it is just the natural order of how linking works.
A reception hall linking to DJs and florists is totally natural. And it is natural for them to link to local reception halls that they deal with.
Even those cases where a prominent news source writes an article about you and gives you an unsolicited link in the article, would you not want to put a link to that article on your site so that your visitors can see how highly that source thinks of you?
There have been rumors afoot that Google will start to (or already has) discounted the value of a reciprocal link versus a one way only link.
A reciprocal link is (more or less) a one way link - with a feedback loop. As most links out are deep-pages and linking to homepage.
In addition I have seen several threads advocating no offsite linking because each time you link offsite you are draining pr from your site.
A fallacy. The power of the link is found though many generations. Likened to royalty bloodline - the farther back, backlinks go on the same link "theme" the more weight is associated.
Lets discuss this. First, what is a reciprocal link? Rarely do what we typically consider reciprocal links actually reciprocate from page to page.
direct page to page would be more likened to light cross-linking.
Usually we work it like this:
from sitea.com/links.htm to siteb.com reciprocated with
from siteb.com/resources.htm to sitea.com
correct
So would Google diminish the value of a link from one site to another that is reciprocated from anywhere on that site? I don't think so.
Nor do I - a link is a link > it passes what value of PageRank is associated and whatever weight (towards the query) is generated by anchor, text in proximity, page title, etc.
I have a restaurant that specializes in wedding receptions. People looking for receptions that find my site would find a link to a dj's site possibly quite useful. Conversely, someone on that dj's site could quite conceivably still need to book their reception somewhere. Both these links are useful and the value of the links is in no way diminished because they are reciprocated.
If you have dj stuff on the linked page and the other site had wedding stuff on his page so that a related "theme" between the sites was apparent this would create the best results.
Now if I were to stretch it a bit (and people in this area do) and reciprocate with a site about low cost mortgages (all newlyweds need a new home) then those links would have little value for the user. However, it is the intrinsic value of the link itself, rather than the fact that it is reciprocated, that determines it's value to the user (and therefore to Google).
As above.
As for not linking out to avoid pr loss. That is something I highly recommend.
Totally disagree here. Going way back to Brett's Success in 12 months in Google is very sound advice.
If every single page has two outbound links on them that are:
1. recognized quality/authority sites, and
2. on topic
You are pushing your "web site" out as a hub of information. Hubs get noticed quickly and often because they contain "vast" quantities of information to a "vast" number of specific topics.
This helps in 6 ways:
1. logfile recognition > webmasters seeing a strange referral will often take a look, and if your site offers value to their visitors a link materializes.
2. webmasters noticing you link out to many websites will request an exchange > you don't need to look for them (a big time saver).
3. "Nodes" phenomena > the hub gets diversified as many interested visitors return often to view your resources > "a one stop info site" > the more they are on your site the more chance when their needs change > they will return to buy something, which leads to #4.
4. site stickiness
5. remember that bloodline? Links by proxy are better than a link from a site that have few inbounds and at some point down that backlink path they stop. Starting with your outbound link "widgets to another site > "widgets" to another site > "widgets" to another site > "widgets" to another site > "widgets" and then back to you > is a darn good bloodline.
6. long-term > quality hubs rarely remain hubs > they can quickly become an authority site > you have access to "on-topic" everything therefore the inbound links pour in (no need for others to link elsewhere and clatter up their sites).
So while you protected that so-called "PR drain" you lose out on "The Power of the LINK!
hmmm... this thread should have been in Link Development Forum.
[edited by: fathom at 7:33 am (utc) on May 8, 2003]
As for not linking out to avoid pr loss. That is something I highly reccomend.
To my competition.
<added>
"That is something I highly reccomend....To my competition."
Probably would have been better.
recommend.. even better yet</added>
[edited by: Powdork at 6:38 am (utc) on May 8, 2003]
(At time of posting there was only 2 posts hahaha i'm slow)
[edited by: Skylo at 6:39 am (utc) on May 8, 2003]
Sales tactics
Its predominant reciprocal linking to predominant reciprocal linkers that does not add a lot to the webgraph as a whole.
It can build a nice community, but it could also be seen as "one site".
On the whole could one say that if 90% of your links are reciprocal, you are either a new site or you seemingly offer nothing very original?
Good post fathom - powdork had it in originally - I was also fooled :)
On the whole could one say that if 90% of your links are reciprocal, you are either a new site or you seemingly offer nothing very original?
I would love for 90% of my links to be reciprocal. I'm just waiting for National Geographic to put the link to me on their home page.
There may be a way to determine algorithmically that a site gets most of its links from link exchanges, but it will be something more complecated than a "90% rule"
I would love for 90% of my links to be reciprocal. I'm just waiting for National Geographic to put the link to me on their home page.
Same here BigDave. I do have a client that got 4 un-solicited links from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia for outstanding content which is a close second.
Logically these can only have similar value if nobody uses link exchanges to artificially boost their ranking, which we know is not the case.
Sooner or later this becomes a threat to relevancy and then the algo gets tweaked. Some of this is probably already handled by looking at the 'theme' of the links (who links to the linker), but as link exchanges become more prevalent, I fear they will introduce some other factors.
Logically these can only have similar value if nobody uses link exchanges to artificially boost their ranking, which we know is not the case.
The truth is that it really is a very small percentage of the web that use link excanges to boost their ranking. Some *sectors* have major problems with it, but the vast majority of the web doesn't.
This may be hard to believe if you are into weight loss pills or travel, or for that matter, a member of Webmaster World. But it's the truth.
What can/would/should Google do?
1. Discount the value if reciprocal links
2. Discount the value of links from pages such as links.htm, resources.htm, other sites.htm, etc. Or with words such as that in the text. Similar to guestbooks.
3. Base amount of pr passed on to some sort of topicality/theme
Any other ideas?
This may be hard to believe if you are into weight loss pills or travel, or for that matter, a member of Webmaster World.
I don't find this hard to believe, but it doesn't affect my point - if only 10 sites selling weight loss pills manipulate the algo then the relevancy is affected.
More importantly, link exchange as an SEO method is 'ramping up' - soooner or later it will become an overused technique and its value will be 'addressed' in some way.
I guess they would probably just increase the value of an on-theme non-reciprical link slightly.
Something subtle, in fact it may already be there - it would be hard to spot because of the value of an on-theme link is higher already.
They can leave the PR the same and just play with the themeing part of the algo.
Logically these can only have similar value if nobody uses link exchanges to artificially boost their ranking, which we know is not the case.
Page Title of the linking pages does seem to relate quite strongly to the "link to" page.
Again going back to Brett's post Success in Google in 12 months > although he did not expand on "why"... a link on a "content" page would need to be related to that content so not to alienate your visitors on your primary pages.
Thus Meta Title, Page Title and text in the proximity of the link would be "on theme" providing more weight to the "linked to" page.
Although Brett indicated this more towards "authority" sites the philosophy remains the same for reciprocating links... and this would in no way be inferred as "artificial boosting of PageRank/Link Pop.
In fact > today -- this is a deal breaker for me.
If a site owner only wishes to develop links on "non-content" pages, placing all outbounds on "link pages" -- they need someone else to develop their site.
Why would Google want to discount a link from a site which has an on topic well organized directory of links as a resource for users?
My guess is that they are factoring the Page Title and anchor text of the linking page AND the pages that link to the linking page, and as BigDave says, at the moment this may be sufficient to sort the wheat from the chaff.
But I worry what will they be doing in 6-12 months time, (which is where our efforts need to be targeted)?
IMO, indiscriminate reciprocal linking will not put you in the league of what is meant in those papers.
In a competitive market they (the user) is going to check anyway so I'd rather have them doing this from one of my pages (and bookmark it) than return to big G never to be seen again.
Yup > taking a lesson from "batteries"... I have never walked into a store to find EverReady at the far side away from DuraCell.
Human nature is comparative shopping... and they return often to stores of choice.
Strange bunch we are "nope - not on my site" > I'm not letting my visitors leave > all the while > everyone does! ;)
This may be hard to believe if you are into weight loss pills or travel, or for that matter, a member of Webmaster World. But it's the truth.
Even in travel, there's a surprising amount of unsolicited (and unreciprocated) linking. I link to quality sites that I find in the course of researching articles, and I've found links to my "content site" on all kinds of sites--e.g., a major librarians' reference site, academic libraries, an airline, a luggage manufacturer, general travel sites, newspapers, magazines, and pages for things like medical or scientific congresses that wanted to provide tourist resources to attendees.
But it isn't just content sites that get unsolicited links. I often find links to commercial sites like Priceline and QIXO in travel articles, and not long ago I ran across a link to an accommodations site in a U.S. newspaper article about a European city. The better the site, or the more unique the service it offers, the more likely it is to receive unsolicited links.
